Our victim should represent the stereotypical blond and attractive female victim in thrillers or Horror-films like "Scream", American Psycho", "Psycho" and "Inglorious Basterds". We want to present our victim as innocent and weak to make her pitiable and let the audience sympathise with her. That will create a moral conflict in the audience, because they will like the funny and charismatic killer, but they also will sympathise with the innocent and helpless victim. Moreover our target audiences, men around 30 and around 18, will fancy a young and attractive woman. However we want to show clearly that the killer has completely has desecrated the victims innocence. So we are not going to present our victim with clean blond hair and a white dress. We are going to present her in a dirty, bloody and worn dress, the hair dirty and messy as the face is.The inspiration for our victim is the young Shoshanna Dreyfus running away from Hans Landa. ("Inglourious Basterds")
We have chosen to
use Alice Heappey as our victim because she is young,
blond and attractive, which are the characteristics of a stereotypicalthriller and horror-film genre.We’ve also chosen her, because our target
audience, men from 20 to 30, will fancy her.
We’ve chosen Simon
Wood as our killer, because he has the same age and gender like our target
audience, what will make it easier to make the audience slightly sympathize
with the killer like in “Man Bites Dog”.He also has a lot of experience of standing in front of a camera, which
will make it easier to film him. Moreover has he played similar characters
before and knows exactly what we want him to do.
Just a short summary of what our thriller idea looks like right now:
The movie would be about two police officers hunting a cannibalise serial killer, who makes a cooking show at the internet, where he explains how to cook the people and how to create different kinds of meals. Our opening sequence will present the killer in one of his shows. The whole sequence is separated into three parts:
Preparation: different shots showing the killer preparing his set and the food
Show: “Camcorder” (Sony NX 5) shot showing the show
“Camcorder” shot showing the killer feeding his victim with her own hip on toast
In the research for our thriller we looked at different recipes for meals with meat, which you can make in a short time. We found a recipe for meat from the hip on toast, which fits perfectly into our concept, because it is simple to make doesn't need a to big amount of meat and it is easy to feed someone with it. :
To keep everything as realistic as possible, we are really going to cook this meal during our thriller shooting. So we will need the real ingredients, which are: - 3onion(s) - 4 tbsp.oil - 100mlbroth - 3tablespoons sourcream - 400gsteak (s), from the hip - 8disc/ntoast
This will be enough for 8 toasts. However we might need more, because we don't know yet how often we have to film different things,
We want to present our killer as a smart, intelligent guy. So we want show his good education and upper class status through good and expensive clothes, which also looks smart. This will subvert the audience's expectations of an stereotypical upper-class man. We want to reinforce that effect of subverting the audience's expectations through presenting the killer in the colour white, which stands for innocence.
Thomas Pink Cutaway slim fit solid white shirt £ 89.00
So we decided to customize our killer in a white shirt (slim), which we will order in the internet. Although we're going to present our killer in way, that subverts the audience's expectations, we also want to show his "dark" side. So we decided to cloth his legs and feed in black. That creates a binary opposition to the white shirt and also represents his literally "black" side of his mind.
Chinos £19.99 H&M
So we decided to use black chinos, which we will buy in H&M...
black leather shoes £120.95
...and black leather shoes, which we also will order in the internet
Because our killer is cooking he is going to wear an apron. We want to use a white waist apron to present our killer hiding his "dark" side (black trousers) behind a white mask of innocence and.
We want to present our killer as a smart, intelligent guy. So we want show his good education and upper class status through good and expensive clothes, which also looks smart.
So our biggest Inspiration in terms of costume for our killer is Hannibal Lecter, an upper-class and very intelligent psychiatrist, who is actually a sadistic serial-killer and cannibal.
He's wearing expensive suits, which present him as an upper-class, well educated person with an high status.
We want to present our killer not in exactly the same, but in a similar way.
We decided that the name of our thriller is the name of the cooking show the killer makes. So the name we are going to choose for our thriller will be strongly connected with the topic food. Because our opening sequence has a very black humoured and disturbing side we want to choose a name, who creates a black humoured atmosphere. We are not going to use the title Cooking for Children, because we changed our idea and the killer is not cooking children anymore. Here are some potential titles for our thriller:
Breakfast in America - this title refers to the song "Breakfast in America" by Supertramp and so is quite amusing for the people, who know Supertramp and this song. A disadvantage is that Supertramp is not very popular anymore and a lot of younger people, which are our target audience, don't now the band and the song and won't get the joke behind it. The Breakfast Club- this title refers to the film "The Breakfast Club". As the title "Breakfast in America" does this title creates humour through linking the whole show to another film/song. But as the Song "Breakfast in America" the movie "The Breakfast Club" is not very popular for our target audience anymore.
Cookery Club - this title is an alliteration, which makes it easy and comfortable to say it. It also creates humour through linking to old people having a breakfast meeting/club every Sunday. It also gives us the uncomfortable and a bit disturbing feeling of having a real society of organized cannibals around.
The Last Supper - this title is the most serious one as it references the bible. The title's advantage is that it's a well known title is so a possible audience will not forget.
We haven't decided yet which post we are going to choose, We are probably going to do that when we start editing our thriller.
Because our opening sequence is going to be a cooking show. The main part of the sequence, the actual show, will be set in a kitchen. The location for the other part, the feeding scene, will be set up in the studio.
Kitchen Location
Jamie Oliver's Online Cookery Show, Food Tube
I have looked up some online cookery shows and especially had a look at the kitchens that were used in them. I noticed that there all are using kitchens with islands. Moreover they're all pretty spacious and look very professional, but still home, and neat. I also looked up some kitchens of cannibals in movies and TV-dramas like "Red Dragon" or "Hannibal". However these kitchens look far too sinister and noble. Therefore we are not going to take inspiration from these kitchen designs.
Hannibal Lecter's kitchen in the TV-drama Hannibal
I had a look in some of our kitchens in the boarding houses, but they were far to simple, they didn't even have stove plates.
So I had a look I had a look in some of the kitchens in some friends houses and there we found the kitchen we wanted to use for our thriller. Because we know the owners of it, we saved money we would usually have to pay for renting or even building the set. We have chosen this kitchen, because it's a well equipped kitchen and it looks designed but the wooden style will make the audience feel comfortable as they would be in their own kitchen at home.
To create the storyboard was a little bit difficult, because we hadn't planned every detail of our thriller and had to discuss quite a few things about the exact order of events and actions and other details of setting, props, etc.. So, for an example, we had to discuss what the killer is going to cook to plan the shot by shot timeline and the dialogue of the show. But after we had discussed everything it wasn't that hard to develop the storyboard. Moreover it helped us fundamentally to understand our opening sequence as we know exactly what we want to do and from this base we can easily develop our idea if necessary. During our development of the storyboard and shot by shot list we have made some slightly changes:
We are now going to add another sequence after the preparation shots and the show. This sequence will also be filmed by the "camcorder" (which we decided will be the Sony NX 5 and not a proper camcorder) and will show the killer feeding his female victim with her own hip on toast. We decided to use a blond and female victim, because they represent the stereotypical victims in thrillers. This part of the opening sequence will be the serious part of our opening sequence. We won't use any non-diegetic sound at all in this sequence to create a very strong contrast to the happy mooted background music of the show. This will create an uncomfortably calm atmosphere and an incredible strong tension. (like the first scene in the Hollywood movie "Inglorious Basterds") We have also given our characters names: The killer is now called Jeremy Jerad and the victim is called Sophie Miller but developing our storyboard didn't help us to understand our characters better, because we already had a very clear image of our characters. Especially the way we want to present our killer was very clear from the whole beginning. The main titles will be shown during the preparing sequence. But there won't be any title in the show and in the feeding scene.
Contrapuntal Music is either diegetic or non-diegetic music, which creates an opposite meaning to the actual action on screen. On of the best examples for the use of contrapuntal music in thrillers is the torture and ear eating scene in "Reservoir Dogs" ...
as well as the "singing in the rain" scene from "ClockworkOrange":
A happy mudded music playing with nearly sadistic violence on screen creates this kind of funny, but also perverse atmosphere, which makes you feel a little bit sick. Because we want to create the same atmosphere on screen of this guy as killing and cooking people the same way as drinking a cup of tea in the evening, we are also going to use contrapuntal music. We looked up different songs and finally found the title of the German TV-show "Löwenzahn", which is exactly the kind of music we want for our thriller. Because of copyright we are not aloud to use this song, but we're already looking around to find a music producer
Preparation The whole preparation sequence is very calm and the killer is doing everything precisely. We don't see the killer's face at all: Big close-up of a sink. Killer is turning on the water and washes his hands. - diegetic sound of the running water (5-6 sec.) Big close-up of killers hand being dried with a towel.(4-5sec.) Medium close-up of killer's side putting on a apron (could have flowers on it or something different which also creates a contrast to the act of killing, cooking and eating children.) (4-5sec.) Big closed-up panning shot of knifes, wooden spoons and other kitchen equipment being put on the table/working plate. ) (4-5) Close-up of the pan being put on the heater/fire, oil gets put in. (4-5 sec.) middle wide-shot of killer cutting the onions. Seeing him from behind; seeing his back and occiput (4-5) Big close-up of onions being cut and put into the pan. - diegetic hissing sound (4 sec.) high angle close up or point of view tenderizing the meat (3-4 sec.) over the shoulder shot or point of view cutting the meat into stripes (3-4sec.) middle close up of killer watching himself on the display of the camera, pressing the record button, goes back into the kitchen while still facing the camera. (5-6 sec.) or wide shot (camcorder view) of kitchen and killer :" Well, I think I'm ready. Would you mind to press the record button? ... Yes go on". Red " rec" appears in the right top corner of the screen. "Thank you" Cooking Show: constant wide shot of the camcorder filming the show (about 1 minute) wide shot of camcorder "And now, would you mind to press record button again to stop recording?" the "rec" disappears. "Thank you very much" Trying the toast - camcorder wide shot of killer coming closer - killer grabs the camera and positions it on a table - we see in a wide shot victim sitting on a chair by a table - zoom into middle wide shot showing the two chairs, table and victim - "rec" appears again - hearing the killer going back to the kitchen, he comes back and sits next to the victim - feeds the victim like a baby ( spending much time on that to constantly confront the audience with it) end of opening sequence and blending in title of movie, which will also be the title of the cooking show Thing to be remembered point of view http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/875988277088/Fleisch-Toast.html
There have been slightly changes in our opening sequence idea: Before we just wanted to show the cooking show in our sequence, which would've been filmed from different shots like a professional show. Now we decided to present the show to the audience just through one wide-shot of a camcorder to turn it more into a self-made show. We were afraid that just the show for two minutes could get a bit boring so we decided to show the killer preparing his kitchen for the shoot with professional looking angles and camera movements.
Sagawa said he fainted after the shock of shooting her, but awoke with the realization that he had to carry out his plan. He did so, beginning with her buttocks and thighs, after having sex with the corpse. In interviews, he noted his surprise at the "corn-colored" nature of human fat.For two days, Sagawa ate various parts of the body. He described the meat as tasting like raw tuna. He then attempted to dump the mutilated body in a remote lake, but was seen in the act and later arrested by French police, who found parts of the deceased still in his refrigerator.
Sagawa's wealthy father provided a lawyer for his defense, and after being held for two years without trial Sagawa was found legally insane and unfit to stand trial by the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who ordered him held indefinitely in a mental institution. After a visit by the author Inuhiko Yomota, Sagawa's account of the murder was published in Japan under the title In the Fog. Sagawa's subsequent publicity and macabre celebrity likely contributed to the French authorities' decision to have him extradited to Japan. Upon arrival in Japan, he was immediately taken to Matsuzawa hospital, where examining psychologists all found him to be sane, stating that sexual perversion was the sole motivation for the murder. Japanese authorities found it legally impossible to detain him because the French government refused to release court documents (which remain secret) to Japan, claiming that the case had already been dropped in France. As a result, Sagawa checked himself out of the mental institution on August 12, 1986, and has been a free man ever since. Sagawa's freedom has been questioned and criticized by many.
Andrei Chikatilo was a Ukrainian serial killer, nicknamed the Butcher of Rostov and ‘The Red Ripper.’ He was convicted of the murder of 53 women and children between 1978 and 1990. In 1978, Chikatilo moved to Shakhty, a small coal mining town near Rostov, where he committed his first documented murder. On December 22, he lured a nine-year-old girl to an old house which he bought in secret from his family and attempted to rape her. When the girl struggled, he stabbed her to death. He ejaculated in the process of knifing the child, and from then on he was only able to achieve sexual arousal and orgasm through stabbing and slashing women and children to death. Despite evidence linking Chikatilo to the girl’s death, a young man, Alexsandr Kravchenko, was arrested and later tried and executed for the crime. He established a pattern of approaching runaways and young vagrants at bus or railway stations and enticing them to leave. A quick trip into a nearby forest was the scene for the victim’s death. In 1983, he did not kill until June, but then he murdered four victims before September. The victims were all women and children. The adult females were often prostitutes or homeless tramps who could be lured with promises of alcohol or money. Chikatilo would usually attempt intercourse with these victims, but would usually be unable to get an erection, which would send him into a murderous fury. The child victims were of both sexes, and Chikatilo would lure them away with his friendly, talkative manner by promising them toys or candy. In the USSR at the time, reports of crimes like child rape and serial murder were often suppressed by the state-controlled media, as such crimes were regarded as being common only in “hedonistic capitalist nations.” In 1988 Chikatilo resumed killing, generally keeping his activities far from the Rostov area. He murdered a woman in Krasny-Sulin in April and went on to kill another eight people that year, including two victims in Shakhty. Again there was a long lapse before Chikatilo resumed killing, murdering seven boys and two women between January and November of 1990. He was finally caught when trying to approach young children whilst under police surveillance. He went to trial on April 14, 1992. Despite his odd and disruptive behavior in court, he was judged fit to stand trial. During the trial he was famously kept in a cage in the center of the courtroom; it was constructed for his own protection from the relatives of the deceased. The trial had a very disturbing atmosphere. The relatives kept shouting threats and insults to Chikatilo, demanding the authorities to release him so that they could execute him on their own. He was found guilty of 52 of the 53 murders and sentenced to death for each offense.
He was executed by firing squad (shot in the back of the head) on February 14, 1994 after Russian president Boris Yeltsin refused a last ditch appeal by Chikatilo for clemency.
Our killer will be presented , although he is killing and eating humans, very charismatic, sympathy and even funny. So we are looking for serial killers on TV, who are not the stereotypical bad guys like Harlen Maguire in Road to Perdition and not the stereotypical insane guys like the Joker in The Dark Knight. Ben, the serial killer from Man Bites Dog, has a big influence on our thriller, because he is not behaving like an evil guy. He is always in a good mood and stays very objective all the time. Our killer will be presented strongly like him in the cooking show Although our killer doesn't get presented and doesn't presents himself as a very serious or bad guy, he is actually incredibly intelligent, cunning, cruel,sadistic and calm. So another big influence on our thriller has the Character of Hannibal Lecter, who is like our killer a cannibal, because he is very, very smart and always two steps ahead of the police. Another big influence on our thriller has Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, because, alth-ough he is a very seriously thinking charac-ter, he has this very fun side when he kills people. He listens to Phil Collins or Katrina & The Waves, shows a nice smile and has this playful way of doing it. That fits really good with our killer profile as we want to have a killer, who pretends to be playful and zippy, but is actually a very serious and calm person like Hannibal Lecter. Although our killer is presented and presents himself as a not really serious and dangerously calm person, he still is an absolutely serious,intelligent and cruelly brutal character. Patrick Bateman is very inventive varied and very brutal in the ways he kills people. This spontaneity and brutality of him killing people has a lot in common with our killer.
The biggest influence on our thriller have the french film Man Bites Dog and the Hurtwood thriller Deadmendotcom, because their concept and film idea is exactly what we want to do in our thriller. A very objective and documentary way of explaining how to kill and cook people, which creates a strong black humored, but also perverse tone. The main factor, which creates the funny tone and the humor, is the non-diegetic and contrapuntal music. We will definitely use a similar contrapuntal music to create the same comedian and showy atmosphere.
Another influence on our thriller has the TV-Drama Hannibal and the other Hannibal movies. The series shows a lot of sequences where Hannibal cooks, which will influence a lot by choosing the props. The TV-Drama as well as the movies have some very cruelly black humored scenes and sequences, which make you feel sick. Our thriller might include a lot of comical elements, however we also want to make the audience feel very uncomfortable, when they have watched the entire clip.
For the research on our thriller, we looked at different serial killers:
Luka Rocco Magnotta
A Canadian porn actor accused
of dismembering his Chinese lover and mailing the body parts to political
parties and schools. Eric Clinton Kirk Newman was born on July 24, 1982 in
Scarborough, Ontario. He attended Weldon
Secondary School in Lindsay. He legally changed his name to Luka Rocco Magnotta
on August 12, 2006
Luka Magnotta, 30, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in
the gruesome slaying and dismemberment of Jun Lin last May. As well as
first-degree murder, Magnotta is also facing four other charges relating to the
case. He is accused of dismembering Lin, having sex with the dismembered corps,
and mailing to schools and political parties parts of his body across Canada, Lin's
hands and feet were mailed in May to the offices of political parties in Ottawa
and to schools in Vancouver, before leading police on an international manhunt
. On May 25, 2012, an 11-minute video titled 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick was uploaded
to Bestgore.com depicting a naked male tied to a bed frame being repeatedly
stabbed with an ice pick and a kitchen knife, then dismembered, followed by
acts of necrophilia.[26][27] The perpetrator uses a knife and fork to cut off
some of the flesh and gets a dog to chew on the body.[26][28] During the video,
the 1987 New Order song "True Faith" plays in the background,[26] and
a poster for the 1942 film Casablanca is visible on the wall.[29] Canadian
authorities were able to obtain a "more extensive" version of the
video and confirmed that cannibalism may have been performed.[6][30] Materials
promoting the video appeared online at least 10 days before the murder took
place.
His torso was found in a pile of garbage behind Magnotta's Montreal
apartment, and his head was discovered in a Montreal park in July. Magnotta
flew from Montreal to Paris on May 26, using a false passport under the name
Kirk Trammel. His cell phone signal was traced to a hotel in Bagnolet, but he
had left by the time police arrived. Pornographic magazines and an air-sickness
bag were found in the hotel room. He had contacts in Paris from a previous
visit in 2010, and police were following a large-framed man who had been in
contact with Magnotta. Another man he stayed with for two nights did not realize
who he was until he had left. Magnotta then boarded a Eurolines bus at the
Bagnolet coach station bound for Berlin, Germany. He was finally arrested in
Germany.
In his previous life, He was
sought by animal rights groups for allegedly uploading videos of himself
killing kittens. Many profiles on various internet social media and discussion
forums were created over several years to plant false or unverified claims
about Magnotta. Magnotta himself repeatedly dismissed such accounts as hoaxes
and part of a campaign of cyber stalking against him. According to police,
Magnotta set up at least 70 Facebook pages and 20 websites under different
names. Also, rumours claimed that Magnotta was in a relationship with Karla
Homolka, a high-profile Canadian murderer.
For the research on our thriller we looked at different serial killers:
Jeffery Dahmer Jeffery Dahmer was an American serial killer, necrophiliac, and cannibal from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dahmer, an extremely disturbed individual, would lure young men to his apartment where he would murder and dismember them after sedating them with alcohol or drugs. After disposing of his victims he would consume or experiment with their remains. By the time of his trial he was charged and convicted of 15 murders and given numerous life sentences. On November 28, 1994 Dahmer was beaten to death at the Colombia Correctional Institution in Milwaukee. Dahmer could be an inspiration to our character in our Thriller. After watching a series of interviews with Dahmer we picked up on his manerisms and behaviours which we would later insert into our character. e gave us an idea of the disturbing sinister impression we wanted our character to portray.
A very big influence on our thriller will have the essay A Modest Proposal published by Jonathan Swift in 1729, because the actual idea for the thriller was developed from this essay. This text will mainly influence our script, which is one of the most important things in our thriller. In his detailed descriptions of cooking children in a proper and good way he hits exactly the objective tone we want to get in our thriller and so creates this very satiric black humor.
A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
The "Hammer" film company is a company, which is specialised on the horror and sci-fi genre. It was active between the 1930s and the 1970s. In 2007 it got refunded. The biggest successes are the Dracula films with Christopher Lee and The Woman In Black with Daniel Radcliffe.
The Woman In Black The movie The Woman In Black was the biggest Box Office success in "Hammer-"history. It went to 3267 screens in America and the UK. By a budget of $17,000,000 it made £19,829,610 in the UK and $54,322,273 in the USA. As of June 2012, it has made $127,730,736 worldwide.
The main companies, who contributed the movie are "Cross Creek Pictures", "Hammer Film Productions" and "Alliance Films". "Cross Creek Pictures" is a quiet new American film company, which participated in productions like Black Swan and Rush. "Alliance Films" is a big Canadian film company, which was involved in productions like Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers and Mr.Brooks.
The Star of the movie is Daniel Radcliffe, well known as Harry Potter in the Harry Potter films. The Director of the movie, James Watkins, just directed one other movie, Eden Lake, in which he worked together with stars like Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly. He hasn't worked with one of the companies before.
The Woman In Black is a Horror-film and mainly made for all the Harry Potter fans. They tried everything to make the movie watchable in cinemas for twelve years old and. It also is made for fans of the book and the play as well as fans of the classic horror genre.The movie was also released in Germany and Spain.
I've learnt from this that films that I think are maybe British are actually Co-productions with other international companies and that British films rely on additional investments to be made.
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We want to present our victim as innocent and weak to make her pitiable and let the audience sympathise with her. That will create a moral conflict in the audience, because they will like the funny and charismatic killer, but they also will sympathise with the innocent and helpless victim. 
However we want to show clearly that the killer has completely has desecrated the victims innocence. So we are not going to present our victim with clean blond hair and a white dress. We are going to present her in a dirty, bloody and worn dress, the hair dirty and messy as the face is.The inspiration for our victim is the young Shoshanna Dreyfus running away from Hans Landa. ("Inglourious Basterds")
